Chapter 15

¹As soon as it was daylight, the high priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes, and they and the whole council bound Jesus and took him away and handed him over to Pilate. ²Pilate asked him,

“Are you the king of the Jews?”

He answered,

“Yes.”

³And the high priests kept heaping accusations upon him. ⁴But Pilate again asked him,

“Have you no answer to make? See what charges they are making against you.”

⁵But Jesus made no further answer at all, so that Pilate wondered. ⁶Now at festival time he used to set free for them one prisoner, whom they petitioned for. ⁷There was in prison a man called Barabbas, among some revolutionaries who in their outbreak had committed murder. ⁸And a crowd of people came up and started to ask him for the usual favor. ⁹Pilate asked them,

“Do you want me to set the king of the Jews free for you?”

¹⁰For he knew that the high priests had handed him over to him out of envy. ¹¹But the high priests stirred up the crowd to get him to set Barabbas free for them instead. ¹²And Pilate again said to them,

“Then what shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews?”

¹³They shouted back,

“Crucify him!”

¹⁴And Pilate said to them,

“Why, what has he done that is wrong?”

But they shouted all the louder,

“Crucify him!”

¹⁵And as Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd, he set Barabbas free for them, and after having Jesus flogged handed him over to be crucified.

¹⁶Then the soldiers took him inside the courtyard, that is, of the governor’s residence, and they called the whole battalion together. ¹⁷And they dressed him up in a purple cloak, and made a wreath of thorns and crowned him with it, ¹⁸and they began to acclaim him,

“Long live the king of the Jews!”

¹⁹And they struck him on the head with a stick and spat at him, and they knelt down and did homage to him. ²⁰When they had finished making sport of him, they took off the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him.

Then they took him out of the city to crucify him. ²¹And they forced a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross—one Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus. ²²And they took him to the place called Golgotha, which means the Place of the Skull. ²³They offered him drugged wine, but he would not take it. ²⁴Then they crucified him, and divided up his clothes, drawing lots for them to see what each of them should have. ²⁵It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. ²⁶And the notice of the charge against him read, “The king of the Jews.” ²⁷They crucified two robbers along with him, one at his right and one at his left. ²⁹And the passers-by jeered at him, shaking their heads and saying,

“Aha! you who would tear down the sanctuary and build one in three days! ³⁰Come down from the cross and save yourself!”

³¹The high priests too made sport of him to one another with the scribes and said,

“He saved others, but he cannot save himself! ³²Let this Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see it and believe!” And the men who were crucified with him abused him.

³³At noon darkness spread over the whole country, and lasted until three in the afternoon. ³⁴And at three o’clock Jesus called out loudly,

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

³⁵Some of the bystanders, when they heard it, said,

“See! He is calling for Elijah!”

³⁶One man ran off and soaked a sponge in common wine, and put it on the end of a stick and held it up to him to drink, saying,

“Let us see whether Elijah does come to take him down!”

³⁷But Jesus gave a loud cry, and expired. ³⁸And the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two, from top to bottom. ³⁹And when the captain who stood facing him saw how he expired he said,

“This man was certainly a son of God!”

⁴⁰There were some women also watching from a distance, among them Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome, ⁴¹who used to accompany him and wait on him when he was in Galilee—besides many other women who had come up to Jerusalem with him.

⁴²Although it was now evening, yet since it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, ⁴³Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the council, who was himself living in expectation of the reign of God, made bold to go to Pilate and ask for Jesus’ body. ⁴⁴Pilate wondered whether he was dead already, and he sent for the captain and asked whether he was dead yet, ⁴⁵and when he learned from the captain that he was, he gave Joseph permission to take the body. ⁴⁶And he bought a linen sheet and took him down from the cross and wrapped him in the sheet, and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the doorway of the tomb. ⁴⁷And Mary of Magdala and Mary, Joses’ mother, were looking on and saw where he was put.